Smoke House program returns to teach children about fire safety, preparedness

Since 2004, the Vestavia Hills Fire Department has traveled around the city teaching children about fire safety.

The “Smoke House” program has since expanded, Capt. Ryan Farrell said. The department makes thousands of contacts per year and now sees students from kindergarten to second grade, visually demonstrating a home on fire.

“A lot of these kids have never heard a smoke detector and don’t know what to do when a smoke detector goes off,” Farrell said.

This year, the Smoke House will be at Liberty Park Elementary School on Oct. 2, Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights on Oct. 5 and Vestavia Hills Elementary West on Oct. 11.

In the mobile trailer that the department takes with them, a fire simulation is created to teach students how to escape a fire and students are led to a window where a slide awaits them, Farrell said.

In addition to learning about fire safety, students are told to tell their parents to check their smoke detector, learn how to escape danger and also get a close-up encounter with firefighters in their turnout gear, Farrell said.

“It’s not unusual for children to get scared during a fire,” Farrell said.

Children get scared not just of the fire, but of the firefighters who they don’t know and whose gear they don’t recognize, Farrell said. To alleviate that, Farrell said firefighters show students what they look like in their gear, so they learn to trust and recognize firefighters as people who are there to help them.

VHFD deals with 10 to 15 residential fires per year.

Over the years, the department has heard how the program has helped residents, and if just one person benefits from the program, Farrell said, it is worth it.